


The Protector of Ba Sing Se

by KirumiTJ



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Original Character-centric, Post-Avatar: The Legend of Korra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KirumiTJ/pseuds/KirumiTJ
Summary: Avatar Korra died 16 years ago and the White Lotus has yet to find the new Avatar. There is much speculation about the avatar cycle being broken or interrupted, but a select few know the truth. The Avatar cycle has continued as it had for hundreds of years, but the purpose of the Avatar has been reshaped into something different. The entire world has changed so much, the Avatar naturally changes with it.
Kudos: 7





	The Protector of Ba Sing Se

It was a dark night in Ba Sing Se. This was no surprise, it was a new moon and rather cloudy. The perfect night for the cloak and dagger type. 

“Stop that thief!” Cried a voice somewhere in the dark. The figure running down one of the many alleyways of Ba Sing Se did not look back, and all anyone saw was an orange blur.

The thief, clutching a large bag in their arms, darted from side street to side street with intense speed. The voice calling behind them had long faded, but they did not slow down. Until, that is, they darted down yet another alley and a wall of earth rose from the ground, causing the shortcut to become a deadend. 

The figure paused and quickly turned around. They saw someone blocking the way they had entered. The visibility was near zero. 

“Please have mercy...I have a child at home.” The high pitched and desperate voice called out “This gold will feed us for months, I won’t have any reason to come back.”

The thief had now put their back against the wall. As subtly as possible, they shifted to a defensive stance. The silhouette shifted in response and fire erupted from the entrance of the alley.

The blast of fire was met with a swift gust of air. As the embers lingered in the air for half a second, the theft in Air Nomad clothes caught a glimpse of the firebender in the long green robe and wide brimmed hat.

“A firebending Dai Li agent. Kinda spits in the face of the whole “Cultural Authority” thing doesn’t it?” The woman tried to unnerve the agent “Or do you still do that after the Coup? Remind me again why you guys still exist after that.” 

The fiery projectiles were expected, and the woman had no issue side stepping them. She would glance from the enemy in front of her to the rooftops above, looking for the agent that created the wall.

“I can’t believe you’re in combat and you’re friends haven’t swooped in to give you back up. Must be an ambush then!” 

She crouched and jumped, her airbending twirling her upwards past the wall that had been created to block her. She landed with a gust of wind, and she used the momentum to thrust her body forward as she ran, increasing her speed. She now ran down the main streets of the city, her eyes constantly on the side streets that Dai Li agents could come pouring from. She seemed more exposed, but she knew that the agents would have to expose themselves to attack in a group, she wanted to see them coming.

While her eyes were ensuring that no one ambushed her from the side streets, she suddenly felt the ground impacting her back. She let out a loud wail, then just as quickly as she fell she lifted herself back to her feet. There was ice on the ground, and only where her foot was in that moment.

She wasn’t on her feet for a second when she felt the wind on her bald head. Reflexively she bended the air to create an upward stream. She watched as icicles as vain as knives hovered there. She never stopped moving her feet as she moved in circles, scanning for the origin of the projectiles. The moment she saw the green cloak on a roof of a smaller building, she put all of her force into sending towards her target. 

She heard ice on ice, but she didn’t wait to see if she struck her actual target as she turned and began running as fast as the wind would carry her once again. She did so for only a few minutes, but her speed was so extreme that she had made it to the Inner Wall within that time. She didn’t slow down as she went from horizontal to vertical, sweat falling down her forehead as she willed the air beneath her to propel her over the wall.

When she had almost reached halfway up the wall, she began to smirk. The first hint that the Dai Li had caught up to her was the pain that shot through her body as a slat of stone slid from the wall and impacted her head.

As she fell, she saw a Dai Li agent holding onto the side of the wall, watching her fall. “The last thing I see,” thought the thief “Will be some earthbender cop…”

“No!” she screamed aloud. As quickly as she could manage, she took in all the air her lungs could take and blew it back out. Her decent slowed, but she only had a moment. The moment before impact she let out one last blast of air. It was just enough to save her from serious injury, she laid on the ground feeling all kinds of bruised and broken, but she knew she wasn’t dead yet. She was hurt and exhausted, but she stood nonetheless.

“You...Aren’t gonna win.” She spread her feet and adjusted her stance as she yelled at the Earthbender who glided down the wall as she spoke. “Tell me, why are the Dai Li started admitting other types of benders? If I wasn’t so humble I would think that you got desperate to catch me. Did the pig family threaten to donate to Shulan’s opponent if I wasn’t ‘brought to justice’?” The thief still quipped, even as her side bled lightly. 

The only response the agent had was to launch their earthen gloves at the Air Bender. 

The thief used that moment to pounce. She leapt towards the agent, using the glove missiles as stepping stones. As she jumped from the second one, she twisted and bended a large pillar of air to ented from her leg and crash down on the agent.

The unsettled earth caused dust to cloud the area. The thief used her bending to create a breathable space around her head. She was confident that her move had incapacitated her opponent, but she wasn’t foolish enough to let her guard down.

“Ha, how’d you like that?” She was, however, foolish enough to boast.

A stone impacted her right shoulder. She jumped to the side, attempting to flow with the air around her as she had done before. But the air was heavy with earth, so her own movements began to be heavy and sluggish. She was struck with another stone on the same arm. 

She sent a blast of air in the general direction of her attacker. While nothing impacted, the dust was cleared in the direction she fired. With the prospect of an unseen attacker, she began aimlessly sending waves of air into the dust. As the air clears, the stones begin to miss more often. 

There was so little dust left that the thief thought it obvious as to where the agent was. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just let me leave damn it!”

There was no response. The thief took a step back, and glanced back at the wall. In that exact moment, the dust moved at the thief in one distinct unit. It was heavier and harsher than it had been, the stones were large enough to hurt, and the wind powerful enough to knock someone to the ground. 

She was fully focused on trying to avoid the rocks flying toward her in the dust storm. She was so focused that she had never even anticipated a blast of fire. Her robe began to burn before it was snuffed out by the water that struck her soon after. “The other agents...I’m done for…”

Time seemed to slow. Earth, Water, and Fire pummeled her relentlessly. She tried to avoid and evade. She tried desperately to be a leaf. 

The Air Nomad teachings were never that important to her. She shaved for combat reasons, she ate meat, and she didn’t practice any ceremony that wasn’t mandatory. But the sanctity of life was important. Avatar Aang, the seed of the new Airbenders, taught that above all else.

But the teachings of the dead wouldn’t save her now. 

She closed her eyes and stood up straight. It took her a second to stop flinching from the debris that continued to pelt her, but she managed to. She felt the hard wind around her caused by the swirling dust. No matter where she was, air was always there. Without it, life was without possibility. 

With her eyes still closed, she began to move. Icicles, fire blasts, and massive stones were dodged as if involved in a formal dance with the thief. Her mesmerizing movements quickened and quickened, until she was doing little more than spinning in a circle. The air around her seemed to harden, the projectiles now dodged her as she moved through the dust storm.

Dashing out of the storm, the thief extended her arms and the air that had been used as a shield hurdled towards a Dai Li agent. The impact was strong enough to push the agent up against the wall 40 feet away. She looked around for the other agents, but saw none. She glided towards the downed agent, anger in her eyes.

“I tried to leave.” Is all she said. She positioned her hands in front of her as she manipulated the air within the agent. As they realized they had lost the air in their lungs, they fell to their hands and knees.

Gasping was all that came from them, until they stopped. The thief walked over to the face down body and grabbed the hat off their head. When she kicked the agent onto her back, she was horrified to see a girl no older than 16. 

“No...I didn’t know…She's so young.” She began to kneel to inspect the girl, but her eyes opened suddenly. 

The agent’s eyes were pure white. The thief was so surprised that she didn’t anticipate the large stone pillar that was summoned from the ground, throwing the thief high into the air. She just barley managed to break her fall with her bending. 

“I took the air out of your lungs…” The thief was stunned as she hurried to her feet.

The agent didn’t say anything. She glided with extreme speed toward the thief, speed that simply could not be matched. The thief looked as the agent was suddenly within arms reach of her. With the hat cast aside and her youth on display, the thief felt more intimidated than she had been ever before. 

The agent stomped her foot, and the thief lost her footing as the ground underneath her turned to mud. She flicked both of her wrists towards the ground, and the mud once again solidified. Parts of her body that were submerged were stuck in the ground. 

With a panicked scream, the airbender emptied her lungs as she tried to blow the girl away. 

She did not move, even as her robe billowed in the wind. She brought her hand down in a chopping motion and water from a nearby pond shot like a bullet at the thief. The jet of water struck her face, and ice had formed over her mouth to force her to remain silent.

She could no longer talk. She wasn’t sure if she would have said anything if she could. There was only ever one agent after her.

The Dai Li agent widened her stance and commanded the earth to bring the Air Bender up face to face with her, still imprisoned in the Earth. She raised her arms higher and the Earth crawled to encompass all parts of the Airbender but her head. 

The eyes of the agent faded back to their normal hue. A causal wave of her hand caused the ice on the thief's face to melt away. As she looked at the captured Airbender, she spoke to the airbender for the first time “You are charged with 8 counts of theft and 14 counts of assaulting city officials. You are arrested.”

"Why...Why are you an agent of the Dai Li? This doesn't make sense..." As she said this the agent did a series of steps and then planted her palm firmly into the ground. As the ground seemed to swallow the Airbender, the thief's eyes never moved from the Dai Li agent. "Perhaps this is the end of history." Were the last words of the airbender before disappearing from sight. 

The Dai Li agent walked over to and picked up her hat. She adjusted it back to how she had it, and placed her hands in her sleeves, continuing her patrol of Ba Sing Se.


End file.
